Sex Differences in Neurology and Psychiatry

Dr. Lanzenberger’s research areas include multimodal neuroimaging using PET and fMRI in both psychiatric and neurological patients in comparison to healthy controls, neuroimaging in psychopharmacology, psychoneuroendocrinology including gender medicine, cognitive neuroscience, genetic neuroimaging and experimental neuronuclear medicine. Recently, new multimodal neuroimaging approaches combining pharmacological MRI (phMRI) and PET have been developed. These methodological advancements allow for the evaluation of drug effects in the brain of healthy subjects and patients. By combining molecular and functional imaging information regarding relationship between neurochemical, structural and functional alterations in psychiatric and neurological disorders may be gleaned. Georg S. Kranz works at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Hong Kong, SAR, China, and at the Medical University of Vienna, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Division of General Psychiatry, NEUROIMAGING LABs (NIL) - PET, MRI, EEG, TMS and Chemical Lab, Vienna, Austria. Dr. Savic’s group is a member of the Stockholm Brain Institute (SBI), a center at the Karolinska Institute for Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience. Her research focuses on the cognitive and emotional decline related to chronic stress as a recognized phenomenon and understanding the underlying mechanisms. They are applying several brain imaging techniques, including PET, to investigate how the human brain is affected by psychosocial stress, and explain the reported emotional and cognitive decline related to stress. The aim is to find biochemical markers of chronic psychosocial stress and develop new treatment strategies.

• Section I. Sex Differences in Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology1. Structural differences between male and female brains2. Beyond sex differences and a male-female continuum: mosaic brains in a multidimensional space3. Brain development4. HPA axis, stress 5. Spatial skills6. Gender differences in language are small but matter for disorders7. Sex differences in cognition and aging and the influence of sex hormones8. Sex and the serotonin system9. Sex and the dopaminergic system:  Insights from addiction studies10. Sex and the noradrenergic systemSection II. Genes, Hormones, and Epigenetic Mechanisms11. Genetics of sex differences in neuroanatomy and function12. Sex hormones and human brain function13. Environmental epigenetics of sex differences in the brainSection III. Sex Differences in Neurologic Disorders14. Brain structural and neuroendocrine basis of sex differences in epilepsy  15. Neuroinflammation16. Sex difference in Alzheimer Disease: an updated, balanced and emerging perspective on differing vulnerabilities17. Sex differences in movement disorders18. Autism spectrum disorder19. Sex differences in strokeSection IV. Sex Differences in Psychiatric Disorders20. Schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders21. Sex differences in stress-related disorders: major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder22. The role of sex and gender in anxiety disorders: being scared ‘like a girl’?23. Obsessive-compulsive and related disorders24. Feeding and eating disorders25. Sex differences in antisocial and aggressive disorders that onset in childhood and persist into adulthood26. Addiction among women and sexual minority groupsSection V. Gender Medicine: Towards a Gender-Specific Treatment of Neuropsychiatric Disorders27. Gender medicine: towards a gender-specific treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders